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Chemical Brothers – Don’t Think

Documentary | GB, JP 2012 | 89' | OV

Breakbeat legends The Chemical Brothers played an ecstatic crowd of 50.000 at the Fuji Rock Festival in July 2011. Director Adam Smith, responsible for the massive light show, dove into the spectacle with 21 cameras in order to return the concert film genre back to its roots: to give the audience not only the visual, but also the visceral experience. The title »Don’t Think« is chosen deliberately: There’s no cinematic framework, no behind the stage documentary bits, no self-portraying artists. Not a single word is uttered, even the musicians themselves can only be seen now and then and from a distance. Also, the Chemical Brothers’ set doesn’t leave a second to catch your breath, there is no moment of silence throughout the film, just 90 minutes of breathless, adrenaline-pumping rhythms. Smith embeds this musical barrage in images of the laser show, the film projections and light installations, and with the swat-dripping faces and the dancing bodies he creates a rhythmic-visual trip as fervid as it is hypnotic, as meditative as it is catchy, as inspiring as it is exhaustive.